Research

The faculty of the Program in Nutrition are actively engaged in
cutting-edge and transformative research, evaluation, policy, and other
scholarly activities. They write articles for peer-reviewed journals, books,
and reports. Students are an integral part of these activities.Please see the biographical information on
each faculty member for more detailed information.

Some current and recent projects are the
following:

Choice,
Control & Change (C3). Funded by the National Institutes of Health,
this recently completed $1.5 million dollar randomized control study involved a
middle-school nutrition and science curriculum that focused on eating and
activity behaviors to reduce obesity risk. Ten schools (about 1100 students)
were randomly assigned within pairs to intervention or control conditions. The
curriculum used science inquiry-based investigations to enhance motivation for
action, and social cognitive and self-determination theories to increase personal
agency and autonomous motivation to take action, The study found that compared
to those in the control schools, those completed the C3 curriculum decreased
their consumption of sweetened beverages (soda, fruit drinks, sweetened iced
tea etc.), foods from quick-serve restaurants, and processed, packaged snacks
(chips, candy, cookies, cupcakes, etc). They improved in their knowledge and
perception of agency or competence to navigate today’s challenging environment.
Students were involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of this
program (Drs Contento, Koch, Lee).

Creature
101 (C-101). Funded by National Institutes of Health and
recently completed, Creature 101 is a serous game in nutrition, based on C3, to
promote healthy eating and physical activity behaviors among young adolescents
in middle school. Creature-101 uses behavioral theories as framework for
“creature care” in a world called “Tween”. Students are provided with
scientific evidence that promote energy balance through mini-games, educational
videos and slideshows; and motivate them with interactive dialogues with game
characters. Students also assess their own behaviors; create own “real life”
food and activity goals, and report their progress. A pre-post
intervention-control study with 590 students found that students in the
intervention group who played the game reported significant decrease in
frequency and amount of consumption of sweetened beverages and processed snacks
when compared to the students in the control group. Students were involved in
all phases of the intervention and led to a student dissertation. (Drs Koch,
Lee, and Contento).

Edible
School Yard NYC is a nonprofit organization committed to building
gardens and kitchen classrooms where children can engage in hands-on learning
in NYC public schools.Their goal is to
provide students with the knowledge, skills and environment required to make
healthier food choices. The Laurie M. Tish Center for Food, Education &
Policy within the Program in Nutrition is partnering with Edible Schoolyard NYC
to evaluate one of their Showcase Programs at P.S. 7 in East Harlem - a
neighborhood K–8 school with some of NYC's highest levels of poverty and
obesity and with limited access to fresh produce. The evaluation seeks to
measure the impact that the program has on changing students’ eating behavior,
including increased fruit and vegetable consumption and decreased processed
food consumption. A unique part of the evaluation is the analysis of hundreds
of photographs taken pre- and post school lunch-time meals to assess the foods
that K-5th graders are choosing to eat during lunchtime and the amounts
consumed.The second aspect of the data
collection is age-appropriate surveys that allow for analysis of students
longitudinally. The surveys are administered with Audience Response System
clickers, where students see the question projected on a screen and “click” in
their answer. The project provides many opportunities for student volunteers to
assist faculty members with the extensive data collection. (Drs Koch, Wolf,
Contento).

Effects
of specific diet-derived phytonutrients upon oxidative and reductive metabolic
pathways in cancer. Current and recently completed studies focus on developing
chemopreventive strategies for diminishing risk of developing primary and
secondary cancers. These studies seek toidentify
mechanisms whereby diet-derived organoselenium compounds such as in garlic
might protect again prostate, colon cancers and a variety of other cancers. (Dr
Pinto).

Food,
Health & Choices. Funded by United Sates Department of Agriculture, Food,
Health & Choices is a $1.5 million dollar randomized controlled study with
fifth grade students to examine the impact of classroom education and wellness
policy separately and together to achieve healthful choices and obesity risk
reduction. It focuses on the energy-balance relate behaviors of increasing
fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity, and reducing intakes of
sugar sweetened beverages, and processed package snacks and sedentary behavior.
Twenty schools (about 1300 students) were randomized into 5 schools receiving
curriculum only, 5 schools wellness policy and 10-minute dance breaks in the
classroom only, both curriculum and wellness policy and 5 control schools. Measures
include BMI, behaviors, psychosocial mediators, and process evaluation data as
well as qualitative interview and focus group data. Doctoral and master’s
degree students are central to the research, including teaching the educational
curriculum and conducting wellness activities in the schools and participating
in data collection and analysis; students can also use the data from the study
for dissertations and master’s theses.(Dr Contento, Koch, and Lee).

Fuel
metabolism inter and intra muscularly. Recently completed studies have sought
to understand the physiology of obesity and diabetes through an examination of
insulin resistance and the lipids in muscles in men and women. (Dr Berk).

Healthy Colon Project II. Funded by the American Cancer Society
the Healthy Colon Project II is a $2.1 million dollar randomized controlled
trial that isinvestigating the
effectiveness of educational interventions directed at patients and primary
care physicians for increasing rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in an
urban low-income minority population.Nearly 600 NYC adults (and their primary care physicians) are
participating in this project.As part
of the project, information related to participant's knowledge, attitudes,
beliefs and behaviors related to colorectal cancer are obtained.This is includes a host of questions related
to dietary beliefs about cancer.In a
subset of ~200 participants, food frequency questionnaires were collected on
fruit, vegetable, fat and fiber intake to better understand the relationship
between dietary beliefs about colorectal cancer and actual intake. (Dr Wolf and
Dr Basch in the Health Education Program).

Growing, Older: A Chronicle of
Death, Life, and Vegetables.
Dr Gussow has written books that are transformational for the field, such as This
Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, which chronicles what it
is like to think globally and act locally, including growing your own
food.In her latest book on “Growing,
Older,” she is again transformational in helping people recognize how they can
at all ages learn self-reliance and work to change the world.

My Smile Buddy. For the past several years, the
Program in Nutrition at Teachers College has been collaborating with the
Columbia's College of Dental Medicine to reduce early childhood caries, a
highly prevalent and diet-dependent disease that causes tooth decay in young
children and is the primary cause of childhood hospitalization for treatment
under anesthesia.Funded by an NIH
challenge grant, a multidiciplinary team of researchers developed an
innovative, technology-assisted early childhood caries risk assessment and
behavioral intervention tool. MySmileBuddy uses a unique iPad application and
offers a behaviorally focused, theory-based, and culturally tailored
intervention that targets the primary drivers of early childhood caries:
fluoride- and diet-related behaviors. This project is innovative in several
respects: (1) incorporation of sophisticated Health Information Technology
(Health IT) and Information Communication Technology (ICT), (2) focus on a
high-risk population of low-income Hispanic children and (3) use of
non-dental-professional Coaches to supplement dental services.There are numerous opportunities for Program
in Nutrition students (particularly those that are bilingual in Spanish) to get
involved in MySmileBuddy and engage with parents and young children to improve
oral health. (Drs Wolf, Koch, Contento).

Membership on
National Committees Translating Research Into Policy.

Faculty also serve on committees that at the national level
develop policy based on evidence and research. Some examples are:

Dr Contento was a member of the expert panel, Institute of
Medicine of the National Academy of Science, Food and Nutrition Board, Committee on Nutrition Standards for Foods
in Schools. It developed guidelines for foods in schools that are available
apart from the school meals. The committee recommendations are being used to
develop regulations for such foods in schools.

Dr Karen Dolins has been a Workgroup Member on the Evidence Analysis Library of
the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics for
revision of the Nutrition in Athletic Performance Position Stand.

Dr
Joan Gussow has served on several National Academy of Sciences committees. Most
recently she served afive-year
term on the National Organic Standards Board where she worked to help shape the
regulations that determines the quality of foods USDA certified as organic.

Ms
Shelly Mesznik has been a member of the Expert Panel on the Evidence Analysis Library at the Academy
of Nutrition and Dietetics to develop Nutrition Guidelines for the Prevention
of Type 2 Diabetes.